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Poor John Boehner
Posted by: Linda Carbonell on April 3, 2011. 04-03-2011 by L. S. Carbonell
You almost have to pity John Boehner. The fence he’s sitting on is of the picket variety.
He could easily get the compromise spending bill, with its acceptable $33 billion in cuts, passed in the House if – big if – he could use just the votes of moderate Republicans and the Democrats. The Tea Partiers and social conservatives won’t vote for it. If he passed it the normal way, with bi-partisan compromise, he risks having the right wing of is own party vote him out of the Speakership. Or if he caves to the right wing, he will pass a bill with $66 billion in cuts and riders demanding the defunding of Planned Parenthood and NPR, and directing the worst cuts to the programs that help the most vulnerable, and doing everything imaginable to cut access to abortions. Neither the Senate nor the President will accept that version.
Boehner knows that his power is limited. Last week, amidst all the tough talk about not accepting compromises, he said “We control one-half of one-third of the government. We can’t impose our will on the Senate.” It would be easy to believe that Boehner’s problems come from the newbies in the House, but the fiscal fanatics have been there awhile, Paul Ryan since 1999, Eric Cantor since 2001 and Michele Bachmann since 2007; and Mike Pence, the leader of the social conservatives, has been there since 2009. By now, they all know how the government works. They spent the past two years watching their colleagues in the Senate filibuster 300 bills to death. For some time now, analysts in the media have speculated that Eric Cantor is a very ambitious man who is just biding his time to oust Boehner and assume the leadership of the Party.
John Boehner has always been known as a man who could cut a deal. He has just five days to cut one now or have a partial shut-down of the government, and he knows what that did to Newt Gingrich’s career. Boehner has a very difficult choice now. He can choose to use that oversized gavel of his to knock some sense into the fanatics in his party, choose to govern for the sake of the nation, or he can choose to dig a partisan trench, shut down the government and fade into history as a failed Speaker.
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You are here: Home » Commentary » Poor John Boehner
Poor John Boehner
04-03-2011 by L. S. Carbonell
You almost have to pity John Boehner. The fence he’s sitting on is of the picket variety.
He could easily get the compromise spending bill, with its acceptable $33 billion in cuts, passed in the House if – big if – he could use just the votes of moderate Republicans and the Democrats. The Tea Partiers and social conservatives won’t vote for it. If he passed it the normal way, with bi-partisan compromise, he risks having the right wing of is own party vote him out of the Speakership. Or if he caves to the right wing, he will pass a bill with $66 billion in cuts and riders demanding the defunding of Planned Parenthood and NPR, and directing the worst cuts to the programs that help the most vulnerable, and doing everything imaginable to cut access to abortions. Neither the Senate nor the President will accept that version.
Boehner knows that his power is limited. Last week, amidst all the tough talk about not accepting compromises, he said “We control one-half of one-third of the government. We can’t impose our will on the Senate.” It would be easy to believe that Boehner’s problems come from the newbies in the House, but the fiscal fanatics have been there awhile, Paul Ryan since 1999, Eric Cantor since 2001 and Michele Bachmann since 2007; and Mike Pence, the leader of the social conservatives, has been there since 2009. By now, they all know how the government works. They spent the past two years watching their colleagues in the Senate filibuster 300 bills to death. For some time now, analysts in the media have speculated that Eric Cantor is a very ambitious man who is just biding his time to oust Boehner and assume the leadership of the Party.
John Boehner has always been known as a man who could cut a deal. He has just five days to cut one now or have a partial shut-down of the government, and he knows what that did to Newt Gingrich’s career. Boehner has a very difficult choice now. He can choose to use that oversized gavel of his to knock some sense into the fanatics in his party, choose to govern for the sake of the nation, or he can choose to dig a partisan trench, shut down the government and fade into history as a failed Speaker.
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